


unwind the universe

by luninosity



Category: Actor RPF, Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Caretaking, Comfort, Established Relationship, Gentle Sex, Love, M/M, Massage, Sexual Content, top!Seb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 20:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7907008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian stretches out on the couch, letting legs fall apart, tugging Chris into the space between them. Chris comes willingly, Captain America muscles pliant and devoted, and settles readily against him: back to front, against his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	unwind the universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brenda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/gifts).



> Felt like writing something for a friend. :-)
> 
> Title from Tacocat's "Talk," this time.

Chris arrives home about thirty seconds after the pizza delivery guy departs; they probably crossed on the sidewalk, Sebastian muses, and plops the box onto the kitchen counter and runs back to the door. Chris’s shoulders droop, downcast, but those ocean-depth eyes brighten up at the first footfall. He’s wearing the shiny blue jacket they share, and a soft green shirt; he’s beautiful in early evening light, framed by the closing door, coming home.  
  
“Hey,” Sebastian says, and curls a hand around the back of Chris’s neck, drawing him into a kiss. Chris puts arms around him in turn and tips that head, lets himself be tasted and claimed and treasured. Chris always kisses back so wholeheartedly. A sweet romantic at heart. Sebastian’s sweet romantic.  
  
Their bodies fit together. Chests, hips, thighs.  
  
Resting foreheads together too, he asks, “How’d it go?” Today’s meeting’d involved Ben Affleck, with whom Chris has a history of nervousness and anxiety attacks in any case, even when not reading for a role they’ve been told nothing about. Sebastian’d wanted to come, but it’s a closed process, very secretive.   
  
Neither of them’s especially good at auditions, and he’s glad—Chris is as well, he knows—that they’ve at least gotten out of the initial show-up-and-pray mob. They’re not superstars, but they make it onto some potential casting shortlists; they can come in and read with an invitation, and they’ve earned their reputations as hardworking actors once actually given a role. Going in’s nevertheless nerve-wracking—Sebastian himself has two modes, over-eager kitten-clumsiness and the opposite, the kind of passion that turns into bashful fear of saying the wrong thing when he really wants to impress—but it’s worse for Chris than for him.   
  
Chris shrugs in answer to his question, hands clinging to him, almost unconsciously.  
  
This means subdued Chris. Subdued Chris is not always a bad thing; Chris thinks deeply, ponders, introspects. Sebastian himself sits about fifty-fifty on the introvert-extrovert scale: he takes a while to get comfortable around people, to be sure they actually like him and his sense of humor; once that comfort’s established, though, it’s inviolate, and he’ll shamelessly shake his ass for social media followers or make sex jokes during interviews or body-hug the Captain America shield prop on stage. He loves people and making people smile; he also loves space to be alone with a Shakespeare monologue and a coffee-cup, losing himself in rhythm and language and the rich flavors of nutty caramel caffeine. He’s found a balance, over the years.  
  
Chris Evans is at heart an introvert, for all the frat-boy profanities and baseball caps and beer and pizza. Chris is built of loyalty and devotion based on soul-searching knowledge, and crowds or auditions become sources of stress: so many eyes making demands, asking him to be good enough. Chris gives energy away to others, and does not drink it in, and consequently ends up worn thin and fretful and unfocused, after: overwhelmed.  
  
Subdued Chris sometimes means that in a half hour or so that Boston-boy voice’ll pop up with some huge existentialist question about whether stars have emotions or if Sebastian’s ever thought about the stories of stones on a beach. Sebastian loves those moments, the shy philosopher behind the superhero proportions and the goofy laugh, the thinker who lets a few privileged persons in to play in the metaphysical sandbox, which is full of Disney-prince castles and endless acts of compassionate consideration and a courage that gets him to show up for film after film, on camera, in front of directors and press-tour managers, with a determined smile.  
  
Subdued Chris after a Hollywood audition, however—  
  
Does _not_ mean that lazy reading afternoons or stargazing expeditions’re being pondered. The opposite, really. Not lazy. Too much noise. Mental screaming.  
  
Sebastian steps in without thinking, taking the jacket, tossing it over a chair, rubbing hands along those weary biceps. Chris meets his eyes, but tiredly; Sebastian says promptly, “I ordered pizza,” and gets a laugh. “I noticed.”  
  
“Come here, then.” He scoops up pizza and paper plates—no dishes—and Chris in the other arm, minorly impressed by his own balancing act, and shepherds them all to the couch. He also takes over distributing pizza-slices, handing a plate to Chris, settling in so they’re face to face on the couch, one leg tucked up and the other dangling. “Eat first. You have excellent timing, by the way; how’d you know?”  
  
Chris cocks an eyebrow at him. “Pretty sure you arranged the delivery.” But the tone’s working: lightness, no weight, no decisions required. Sebastian smiles to himself, nibbles pepperoni.  
  
Some days Chris takes care of him, when he needs that: he’s not an unbreakable rock, and he gets scared too, not being enough, not doing enough, not _good_ enough. He holds himself together as long as he can, and when he can’t, when he’s small and frightened and feeling very very inadequate, Chris will take over and hold him instead, will tell him that he is enough, that he’s doing enough. That he’s loved. That he _does_ take care of Chris well enough, and Chris should know, being the person in question.  
  
That one usually gets him to smile.  
  
He loves Chris. He wants to take care of Chris. It’s mutual, of course: that love and that care.  
  
He’d called in the pizza order as soon as Chris had texted about heading back. Half an hour, Chris’s favorite local place: perfect coordination.  
  
Around a mouthful of cheese he says, “Oh, hey, your brother called. They want to have the big family reunion at our place next month.”  
  
Chris winces, a speeding glimpse of emotion like a giveaway train.  
  
“Honestly,” Sebastian goes on, waving the next slice like a conductor’s baton, an orchestra of their lives in mozzarella and his decisions about events, “I said no. We’re both too busy to try to host anything, we’d have to make all the arrangements about guest rooms and meals and what to do with the entire horde for entertainment—I adore your family—and I knew they’d already asked you and you said maybe because you’re too nice, but I said no.” He doesn’t add that he might’ve said yes—he’s also fairly weak as regards being too nice, and he wants to please Chris’s family—if not for the knowledge of Chris’s reaction to having to wear the host-role for an entire week. Some things deserve a stand.  
  
Chris now looks guilty. “If they want…I know they like California, and I don’t want to…”  
  
“I offered a compromise.” He hands over his half-drunk bottle of water from earlier; Chris accepts and takes a sip without arguing. “We can put most of them up in a bed-and-breakfast for the week—it’s not that expensive, I know someone who knows the owner, don’t make that face, _not_ anyone who ever tried to sleep with me at a party, thank you—and your immediate family, your mom, Scott, maybe some of your nieces and nephews, can stay with us. Not the complete swarm. The rest can hang out on the beach and meet us at specific times for dinner or whatever.”   
  
Relief dawns like sunrise over the waves. “Fuck, I love you.”  
  
“I know. Which should’ve been a Star Wars joke, if I’d been thinking about it. And now I’m thinking about Star Wars and sex, so thanks for that.” Anything for Chris, always; and he doesn’t mind playing organizer. Tends to do so anyway among their friends. Nudging, arranging, ensuring everybody’s present and accounted for and wearing warm enough coats and happy with the food selection.  
  
He could’ve made dinner, tonight. That one’s also a balancing act. He enjoys cooking, but they hadn’t planned anything yet, hadn’t even discussed it, and that matters. When Chris’s brain’s already buzzing and clamoring and howling over every second of the past couple hours, _any_ indication that he’s caused unplanned extra work—even if Sebastian _likes_ experimenting with grilled chicken and peach salsa—will transform into another heaping pile of guilt and distress.  
  
Hence the pizza delivery. Nothing Chris has to make a decision about; nothing Chris has to worry about. Taken care of.  
  
He doesn’t ask again about the audition. Sometimes Chris wants to talk about it. Sometimes not.  
  
This appears to be one of the latter times, which is fine. He watches Chris’s face while they eat. He bumps Chris’s ankle with his toes; gets Chris to grin, though the expression’s tired. He grabs Chris’s plate and puts a third slice of pizza on it when Chris seems to be debating, and hands it back.  
  
Chris raises weary fond eyebrows. “Makin’ sure I eat?”  
  
“Nah,” Sebastian says, “making sure _I_ don’t eat it all,” when what he really means is _yes, forever, I’m here._  
  
Chris blushes, a hint of pink sweeping through those cheeks. But he’s smiling. And he eats the pizza.  
  
When they’re done Sebastian shoves plates and pizza detritus onto the table and stretches out on the couch, letting legs fall apart, tugging Chris into the space between them. Chris comes willingly, Captain America muscles pliant and devoted, and settles readily against him: back to front, against his heart. The evening’s a study in pizza-boxes and California sunset, temperate as summer oceans: gold and blue on the surface, deep and strong and thrumming underneath.  
  
He bends down and manages to drop an upside-down-and-sideways kiss on Chris’s cheek. Then says, very seriously, “Your beard tickles my nose.”  
  
Chris huffs out a laugh, or the beginnings of one. “You complaining?”  
  
Careful treading, then: that too-generous heart _will_ hop up and shave every bit of facial hair if even a hint registers in the air, especially in breakable intimate moments like this. Besides: no, he isn’t.  
  
“No,” he says. “Not at all. My nose likes your beard. I like your beard. I like _you_.” And he pokes Chris in the chest, right over the heart, for good measure.  
  
Chris laughs a little more: sounding more real. “Good?”  
  
“Very.” Sebastian flattens his hand over that heart, this time. Feels the beat of it—of Chris’s strength, Chris’s compassion, Chris’s capacity to feel, a boundless depth that never ceases to amaze—under his fingers, his palm. “But you know that. And if not I’ll tell you again.”  
  
“I love you,” Chris sighs, closing eyes; he’s got his head on Sebastian’s shoulder, but he’s smiling slightly, and that, oh, that’s everything in the world.  
  
“Love you,” he says back softly, and rests his cheek on Chris’s hair, and wraps the other arm around his Chris too.  
  
After a while Chris wakes back up—not really a nap, more drifting together on a sofa, letting heartbeats even out, leaning on and becoming an anchor—and tips his head up and nuzzles a scratchy kiss into Sebastian’s throat. Sebastian’s heart hurts with clear simple love, too much to contain, impossible and radiant. Armor-piercing. Made of sleepy kisses and trust and big long-lashed eyes and the faint freckles on beloved cheekbones.  
  
He offers, hushed as the evening, “Come on, I can take you to bed.”  
  
Chris has regained energy enough to smirk. Sebastian rolls eyes. “Not for that. Not yet. Maybe if I decide you’re up to it. For now, I have plans.”  
  
“I love you having plans,” Chris agrees, sitting up. He waits for Sebastian to get up first, which given their entangled position involves one leg swinging with balletic flair over Chris’s head. Neither of them flinches; they both know each other’s physical capabilities. Outside and in. Intimately so. Chris’s eyes sparkle at the display of flexibility.  
  
Sebastian holds out both hands; Chris takes them and gets pulled to feet. Sebastian keeps hold of at least one hand the whole way to their bedroom; Chris follows. The floor’s quiet and cool and supportive under his bare feet; he’s always liked being able to touch, to feel, to know the space around him, whether out for a run in sunshine or lounging in a sturdy bed beside a lover’s body. He likes exploration, and the thrill of sensation, and discovery.  
  
The floor makes no sound, but welcomes their footfalls. Chris’s fingers are loyal and devout in his, going where he leads.  
  
And Chris stops just inside the door, making their hands briefly tug; and then steps closer unconsciously and laughs. “Candles? And—”  
  
“Fake candles—I didn’t know how long you’d be—and space music. Obviously. I think this bit is the recording of electromagnetic particles around Saturn.” He’d bought every single vaguely realistic LED candle he could get delivered that afternoon. The room glows with flickering low light: overlapping shades of white and amber like floating petals of eggshell and ochre and crystal and ivory, cream and cloud and vanilla. Dancing patterns limn familiar dressers and the corners of the headboard, lying like veils over the night. He’d thrown extra sheets on the bed, deep blue and serene; his jar of coconut oil contributes the scent of diaphanous tropical breezes, warm and kind across bare skin. The hum of the universe echoes around them, vast and tranquil: this is their spot in it.  
  
Chris turns to look at him, smile crooked and affectionate and heartstoppingly genuine.   
  
Sebastian, flushing under the gratitude and love in that gaze, says awkwardly, “Take off your clothes, then, and go sit down,” but can’t resist helping anyway, hands meeting hands, getting snarled in sweaters and belt-buckles, laughing. They end up naked and giggling like schoolchildren, listening to the song of infinite galactic harmonies through Saturn’s rings.  
  
“Sit,” he says again, “or actually lie down, I was thinking massage,” and Chris perches on the side of the bed, gazing up at him, muscles and tattoo-ink bathed in candle-glow. Sebastian leans in a fraction and rests hands on both his shoulders; Chris exhales and leans in too, burying his face in Sebastian’s hip.  
  
They stay that way for a while.  
  
Until Chris Evans he’d not known how much he could love another person. How much he’d want to turn himself inside-out, open himself up, make his bones and body and soul into a shelter for another person. How astonished and scared and amazed he can be when Chris gives himself into Sebastian’s clumsy hands for care. A whirlwind of emotion. Shaky and beautiful. He’s honored by the trust, and buoyed up by the way that trust clicks into place somewhere deep down in his soul.  
  
Until Chris Evans he’d always thought of himself as a kid, and he kind of still does: silly, playful, an enormous dork, the guy who got visibly horrified during interviews for _The Martian_ at any suggestion that he could be a real doctor with real crewmates’ lives in his hands. Terrifying and awesome, that responsibility.  
  
Chris makes him want to carry it.  
  
Chris doesn’t ask him to be anything more than who he is, but trusts him _as_ he is, bad space puns and striped socks and ridiculousness. Chris saw him, has always seen him, right to the core: Sebastian loves making people happy, loves taking care of people, loves knowing that he’s done something to make someone’s day brighter. When he puts a hand on Chris’s arm, when he casually rubs a thumb over the pulse-point in Chris’s wrist during interviews, when he lays Chris down in bed and takes Chris apart with tender deliberate slowness, until nothing’s left but sensation, no noise, purely gasps and trembles and bitten lips—  
  
He can take care of Chris.   
  
Now, as ever, a small bud of pride quivers in his chest at the thought.  
  
He guides Chris down to the bed. Chris sprawls out across navy sheets and candlegleam, artwork in dim private glitter and shadow. The tension’s fading but not wholly gone; Chris relaxes under his hands even more as Sebastian swings a leg over him, straddles him, pours silky tropical oil into one palm. Chris wriggles hips, teasing; Seb pauses to smack him on the ass, mostly teasing back. This is Chris happy, so that’s good, but aware enough to be thinking and trying to do something in return, which is not the current goal.  
  
“Ow,” Chris complains goodnaturedly, which underscores the point.  
  
“Don’t move, then,” Sebastian says, and kisses the spot between his shoulderblades, that lonely little place just waiting for lips and love. Chris says, “Mmm,” and relaxes a bit more, given this reminder.  
  
Sebastian slides hands across the planes of his back, gentle strokes first, mostly just loving the long toned planes of him, the shape of him; and then digs thumbs in, presses fingers in, getting into the massage.  
  
Chris’s body’s beautiful as his heart: Irish-moonlight skin, constellations of unexpected cheerful freckles, a tiny fraction under superhero bulk at the moment but getting ready to build back up. He sighs and softens under Sebastian’s hands, a gradual loosening of psychosomatic knots; the afternoon’s anxiety bleeds out into candlelight and coconut oil and love, and is drawn away.  
  
Sebastian spends some time on his back and shoulders—where Chris carries strain—and doesn’t think about anything specific, letting himself focus solely on Chris: on the movement of his hands over bare skin, the slickness of oil, the drowsy murmur as Chris shifts position slightly. Slow, he thinks, and his hands wander lower: to the small of Chris’s back, the narrowing of his impossible waist.  
  
Chris melts under him; they melt together, in their bedroom. Dim ethereal swirls of sound and light. Bodies and breaths.  
  
He doesn’t bother stopping or drawing attention to Chris’s ass when he gets there, just keeps going, not breaking the mood. Chris relaxes readily, supple and yielding, dreamy and pliant. Sebastian kneads muscles gently, wriggles lower, coaxes Chris’s thighs into languor too. He loves this: loves watching Chris fall into peace, no longer weighed down by the pressures of the day, existing only in this reverie of soft sheets and caresses and care.  
  
He works his way back up, smiling: small and helpless and fond. He loves this man.  
  
He spends some time working out a stubborn knot behind Chris’s left shoulderblade—Chris quivers at the relief, then goes limp—and pets glistening oil-rubbed skin in leisurely circles, after. He pays some attention to Chris’s upper arms, and the back of his neck, having to bend down to do so—he can’t resist a kiss to Chris’s ear, which earns a sleepy inarticulate murmur and happy squirm. Chris turns his head enough for one eye to peek up; Sebastian kisses his eyebrow. Works his way back down.  
  
He permits himself another whole-body session, including Chris’s lovely curves, the shape of his backside; this time he even slips thumbs between those curves, stroking, tracing oil across that secret furled ring of muscle and intimate heat. He means to stop, only offering an awareness that, yes, he finds Chris desirable and gorgeous in every moment, an unfocused affirmation of lust as well as love. But Chris turns that head a little more and murmurs, “Seb,” and that’s a request.  
  
And Sebastian Stan will always answer requests from Chris Evans.  
  
“Shh,” he murmurs back, “yeah, okay,” and moves: his body, naked and wholly aware of it, rapidly moving from distant desire to immediate arousal, pressing against Chris’s. Oil and nudity make this slick and easy; he nudges his cock into the space his hands’ve just occupied, but doesn’t do more, simply nestling into the spot, letting his shaft rub across Chris's loosened hole, not thrusting in.  
  
Chris catches breath. Arches hips.  
  
Sebastian gets a hand—slippery and firm—beneath him, around him; sets up a rhythm and strokes him in continuous up-and-down, hearing those breaths turn more ragged. He knows what Chris likes; he doesn’t try to draw this out, to push. It’s about release and reprieve. About his body atop Chris’s, tangible as the kiss of evening.  
  
He rocks into Chris, and the motion pushes Chris’s hips forward into his hand; he moves fingers just _so_ and Chris gasps and shudders and comes in a sticky hot pulse into his grip, onto the spare sheets. Sebastian himself follows a moment later, spilling across Chris’s hole and thighs, exhilarated and breathless and dreamlike.  
  
He rolls to the side, pulling Chris into his arms. They’re messy and spent and sated; Chris feels good and heavy and contented against him. They’re nearly the same size, but Chris makes a wonderful little spoon, head pillowed on Sebastian’s bicep, all those muscles drowsy and fulfilled. The sheet’s wet and doesn’t mind; Sebastian’s hand’s wet, and he cups Chris’s softening cock, idly, and sticks his face into Chris’s fluffy hair.  
  
The universe sings to itself from his playlist. Candles pour light, artificial and no less real for having been created so, into golden frames around their bodies.   
  
“Shower,” Chris suggests, yawning, a question.  
  
“In a minute,” Sebastian answers, “no rush,” and there isn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is not my usual dynamic for them, obviously! *laughs* But Brenda and I have actually talked about this a lot, and the interesting thing is, our reasoning is actually pretty similar, even if we end up with different ultimate conclusions! :-p 
> 
> For the record, and for anyone going, 'ooh, but you're a sub!Seb person! you're writing them wrong!', I actually do - fictionally speaking, this is all always fictional - head-canon Chris as a switch: he's talked about liking control because it's reassuring to be able to direct things the way he wants them, but also, importantly, about needing to shut off the brain-noise sometimes. I head-canon Seb as very VERY much a bottom and/or submissive (speaking as a sub irl, I just, idk, certain things click in my head regarding him, like, oh, I recognize that), but that comes in part from his need to be good and good enough and to make sure everyone's pleased and happy. Around Seb Chris sort of naturally ends up more dominant and reassuring, because Seb is _such_ a sub and apparently everyone's good boy, but that doesn't mean Chris _always_ wants that role 100% of the time.
> 
> So I can COMPLETELY see them switching, especially those times when Chris needs to not-think, regarding which Seb - who is so much about making people happy - would be thrilled to be able to do this: giving Chris what Chris needs. I still think they'd probably instinctively default to top!-or-Dom!Chris like 65% or 70% of the time, and that's still mostly what I'm here to read and write, but I am also _totally_ in favor of people exploring the switching, too - there's room for every permutation of Evanstan! :D


End file.
